The Hunt for Our Christmas Tree

The day after Thanksgiving we drove up into the mountains to cut down our Christmas tree.

The weather is never the same from year to year as we head up to get our Christmas tree.  Some years, there is not much snow on the ground and we only need jackets. Other years there is lots of snow for us to hike through and we are all bundled up with coats, gloves and boots.

This year, there was already snow on the ground when we parked our car and the trees looked absolutely beautiful covered with a dusting of snow. It looked like a winter wonderland. We only have our mini van, not a big truck to get the tree, so we have to watch the weather when we head up to chop down our tree. This year a snow storm was supposed to hit Friday night so we got up into the mountains earlier in the day so we could get our tree and head back down the canyon before the storm hit. As we were hiking around on the mountain trying to find the right Christmas tree, we could see the clouds moving swiftly across the sky as the storm started moving in.

We had a marvelous time hiking up and down the terrain looking for our tree. I threw a snowball at Chance and he filmed it with my camera as it flew through the air.  There was a river running through a snow covered meadow and Chance and his brother crossed it to check out the trees on the other side.

We found a beautiful tree. Every year the tree we find is beautiful. There is just something about having a live tree with the fresh pine smell.

Chance got to yell "timber!" as the tree fell after being chopped down since he will be leaving on his mission soon and will miss the next two years of tree chopping.

Chance really is in his element when he is outside in nature. He loves to help chop down the tree and being in the mountains. He is an outdoor boy.

Ear Popping

Chance's dad and brother were experiencing ear popping. It happens sometimes to them when flying, or when there are large changes in elevation over a short period of time. The boys just happened to be driving through a high mountain pass.

So they asked Chance if he experiences ear popping. He kind of looked at them and said:

"Ear popping?"

They explained it to him......

"You know, when your ears kind of pop or it gets uncomfortable so you want them to pop."

Chance stared at them.

I think we can safely assume that Chance's ears do not POP like the rest of the ears in the family.

So those suckers that I would give to Chance and his brother when we flew on an airplane during take off and landings when they were little were unwarranted?

I just asked Chance if his ears pop when he flies on an airplane and he said he feels pressure, then he fills his checks with air and blows it out real quick and the pressure is gone.

The rest of us start to feel pain as the pressure builds. And it doesn't just always just go away when you try to pop them when you aren't deaf. Maybe other deaf people have a harder time than Chance does relieving the pressure and Chance is just lucky. Whatever the case may be, Chance's ears just don't pop like the rest of the families ears.

Now we'll have to get Ammon on an airplane to see if his hears pop.